Read through a thoughtful response in the forum to today's devotional - read it mostly because of the title "our Mother in Heaven"! I was at a funeral service not too long ago where the minister prayed to our "heavenly mother", but this was not prayed as a metaphor or illustration of yet another truth about God.
Years ago I read Henri Nouwen's "The Prodigal Son" where he spent considerable time meditating on the Rembrandt painting of the same name. One observation was of the Father's hands: one strong and masculine and one apparently feminine - motherly. He made a convincing case that Rembrandt did this intentionally. Nouwen wrote of the maternal care of God, the motherly concern for our provision, even noting one term for the Holy Spirit being feminine. It reminded me of the wholeness of God as parent - He is the complete parent. Our journey of faith is the the journey of gaining the mind of Christ, becoming Christlike. This obviously means embracing the pursuit of wholeness: our heavenly Father loves us perfectly and completely - He is the perfect mix of mother and father.
"Leading means mothering"! I'm pretty sure no reasonable person would claim to know where fathering ends and mothering begins. I am very suspect of books, even some popular Christian books that have figured out the differences between moms and dads and men and women, because Scripture isn't quite so neat and tidy as these books on this subject. Scripture speaks of the bigness of mother and the bigness of father. In fact "honour" (as in "honour your mother and father") is "weightiness" or bigness we need to ascribe. I therefore am left not with a very neat and tidy book "21 steps to being a perfect parent by being father and mother", but an invitation to see that beyond my limited understanding to fatherhood there is more. And even beyond this "more" the picture of God's love and care for me is not yet complete: He loves me like a mother too. He is therefore more than I know, and more than that too. So my journey as a shepherd means I have so much more to pursue: so much more love to delve into and serve out of; so much more wisdom, forgiveness, provision, care to celebrate and lead out of.
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